Design Informer | Graphic and Web Design Blog

It’s 3:49 AM as I am writing this post. I just recently came up with a new format that I would like to start here on Design Informer and it is called "Weekly Wrap." Every weekend, I will be writing a post about the best and most interesting articles/tutorials/reviews/freebies of the week. But the only difference from this and the other similar posts from the other blogs is that mine will not be in list form, but it will follow an article format. Oh, and I forgot, I will also be inserting little tidbits here and there about how my week went and what I got accomplished, etc. So anyway, here it goes.

When I left my job almost 2 years ago to start my own graphic design business, there were a few, let’s say, surprises. The biggest of which was that the majority of my time was being spent running the business, and not actually designing. It is quite difficult to put a number to it, but as a rough guess, I spend around 30% of my time designing. The remaining 70% is spent on other activities such as; advertising, sending emails, tracking expenses, invoicing clients, having phone conversations, writing articles, solving problems, etc.

Being a self-employed graphic designer can be quite a juggling act. If you are unprepared for the task of actually running a business, your dreams of success can quickly fall by the wayside. To be a successful self-employed designer, you need to be much more than a great designer. You also need to be a savvy business person. In this article, I will discuss some of the non-design related tasks that a self-employed designer faces. I will also offer you a few tips to help you run a more efficient and effective design business.